Yes, when the agency has a separate live-room team with its own Douyin results in your category. Running a Tmall Global store and running a Douyin live room are different trades. One contract is fine, but judge the Douyin side on its own evidence: the people who would run your live room and the stores they already sell for.

Douyin’s rules and the pricing regulation checked October 11, 2026.

Your Tmall Partner (TP), the agency that runs your store on Tmall Global, Alibaba’s cross-border marketplace, says it can run Douyin for you too. A Douyin Partner (DP) does that job on Douyin, ByteDance’s short-video app: the shop, the live room, the ads and the customer service desk.

One agency for both sounds tidy: one contact and one monthly report. It can also save real money, because the fixed fees are large.

At default settings, a Tmall Partner costs 770,000 RMB a year (35,000 RMB a month plus 10% of 3.5 million RMB in sales) and a Douyin Partner 460,000 RMB (30,000 RMB a month plus 5% of 2 million RMB). Together: 1.23 million RMB, of which 780,000 RMB is retainers. Source: TheChinaPath calculator data, October 2026.

So the offer deserves a fair hearing. The test is whether the Douyin half of the agency exists yet.

Why Tmall agencies are pitching Douyin now

On Douyin, brands’ own live rooms now carry about half of livestream sales. Somebody has to staff those rooms, and Tmall-first agencies want the work.

During the 618 festival in 2025, half of the sales Douyin livestreams drove came from brands’ own store broadcasts, and nearly 70% of merchants with more than 10 million RMB of livestream sales used them. Source: 21st Century Business Herald (21世纪经济报道), January 2026. https://www.21jingji.com/article/20260130/herald/50ea314a64d44c9664cf2c6a0132a9cc.html

Douyin makes room for those operators. Its program for operating agencies works by invitation, and a Tmall five-star operator rating counts as supporting proof in the application. Then the bar goes up.

Douyin’s operating agencies need more than 20 staff, more than 12 of them on a Douyin e-commerce team, an office of at least 100 square meters and a 100,000 RMB deposit. An agency serving mainly cross-border stores must ship at least 500,000 RMB a quarter through the stores it is bound to. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), operating service provider rules, July 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/article/aJ2D2SbD5GWe

That quarterly bar is about to quadruple.

A revision posted October 7, 2026, and due in force October 15 puts agencies whose main business is luxury or cross-border at 2 million RMB of shipped sales a quarter. Team size and the deposit stay the same. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), notice revising the operating service provider rules, October 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/article/aJr9FiM4w6mc

A Tmall rating won’t tell you much about any of this. Tmall Global scores its partners mostly on store size.

Tmall Global’s 2026 partner star list weights store scale and growth at 77%, service experience at 20% and content and innovation at 3%. Source: Tmall Global service provider market (天猫国际服务市场), FY26 star list, April 2026. https://globaltp.tmall.com/import_tp/TP/informationDetail?id=821

Content is 3% of a Tmall star. On Douyin, it’s most of the job.

Tmall Partner and Douyin Partner: same agency or two

Issue	One agency for both	Two agencies	What to check
Coordination	One festival calendar and one stock plan	Two calendars to reconcile; stock can be promised twice	Who books bonded-warehouse stock for each store
Pricing between channels	One team sets both price ladders; it can also tilt sales toward the better-paid channel	Each agency discounts its own channel to hit its own target	A written price floor per channel, per product
Cost (model defaults)	Room to negotiate below the 65,000 RMB a month that two retainers cost	65,000 RMB a month in retainers, 1.23 million RMB a year with commission	Which commission rate applies to Douyin sales (10% vs 5% is 100,000 RMB at 2 million RMB)
Accountability	One phone number when sales dip, and one agency to blame both stores on	Clear blame per store; arguments over who caused a dip	Separate KPIs and a separate exit right for each store
Douyin capability	Depends on whether a live-room team already exists	A DP that works only on Douyin	More than 12 named Douyin staff and live rooms you can watch

Default fees from the Tmall Global calculator (35,000 RMB a month, 10%) and the Douyin calculator (30,000 RMB a month, 5%); the 100,000 RMB gap is our arithmetic on 2 million RMB of Douyin sales. Source: TheChinaPath calculator data, October 2026.

Read the cost row twice. A combined agency may quote one commission rate for everything. If that rate is the Tmall one, the Douyin store pays for the convenience.

Price conflict between the two stores

Douyin sells through live rooms, and live rooms run on offers: a live-only price, a gift with purchase, a coupon that ends with the broadcast. A Tmall Global store holds the everyday price a shopper finds by searching for your brand.

Shoppers see both prices, and the customer service desk on the dearer store hears about it.

And the law now keeps the platforms out of it.

A merchant selling on several platforms sets its own prices. A platform may not force it to price no higher there than on other channels, or to switch on automatic price-matching, through fees, deposits, traffic limits, search demotion or delisting. In force April 10, 2026. Source: National Development and Reform Commission, State Administration for Market Regulation and Cyberspace Administration of China (国家发展改革委、市场监管总局、国家网信办), Internet platform pricing rule, December 2025. https://www.cac.gov.cn/2025-12/20/c_1767870953332182.htm

That leaves the price gap between your two stores as a decision you make, or one your agencies make for you. Two agencies on commission will each push their own channel, and the cheaper store tends to win the comparison. One agency removes the fight, but it also controls both prices. If it earns 10% on Tmall sales and 5% on Douyin, you’d want to know which store it is steering shoppers toward.

The fix is the same either way. Write a price ladder per product and per channel (list, everyday, festival, live-only floor) into the contract, and read both stores against it each month.

How to check the Douyin team

Ask for what Douyin asks for. Under the July rules, its admission file includes a stamped organization chart, the staff roster, proof that staff are on the company’s social insurance, and at least two selling cases covering live rooms, short video, creator sales and the shop. An agency that sends those to Douyin can send them to you.

Then go further.

Names on the Douyin team. Ask who would host your live room and who would buy its paid traffic. If those names also appear on the Tmall team, you’re buying one team stretched over two jobs.

Douyin client stores in your category. A store counts toward an agency’s Douyin record only when it is bound to the agency through an order in Douyin’s service market. Ask for the bound stores, then open their live rooms. Douyin files padding under false transactions.

Douyin’s operating-agency code counts binding stores the agency doesn’t actually serve, to pass assessments or ratings, as a bottom-line violation: 120 points at once, which means removal and loss of the whole deposit. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), operating service provider management code, July 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/articlev0/aJ5N3Pxir67C

Check the category, too. Douyin’s service market lists brand live-room service as its own category, apart from full brand operations, and keeps cross-border operations in a third, for agencies serving Douyin Global, the platform’s cross-border storefront. Ask which categories the agency holds.

And sit in the studio for one live broadcast before you sign.

Our guide to Douyin partner ratings explains the Diamond, Gold and Silver badges and what they leave out.

How to write the contract, for one agency or two

One agency. Sign a master agreement with two schedules, one per store. Each schedule names its own team and its own KPIs, and each can be ended on its own notice. That way a weak Douyin year doesn’t force you to move a Tmall store that works.

Give each store its own access. On Tmall, the agency should work through sub-accounts under your main account.

Taobao and Tmall sellers can set sub-accounts for third-party service providers, grant permissions, query operation logs and switch the accounts off. Source: Taobao (China) Software Co. (淘宝（中国）软件有限公司), sub-account license, June 2023. https://terms.alicdn.com/legal-agreement/terms/suit_bu1_tmall/suit_bu1_tmall201802012028_72666.html

On Douyin, the agency binds to your store through a service-market order, and some take their commission through the platform’s own revenue split. Douyin wants the scope of that split spelled out.

Douyin treats it as a bottom-line violation when an agency describes its commission as covering specified product links while the real split covers the whole store, every live stream, every short video or every product card. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), operating service provider management code, July 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/articlev0/aJ5N3Pxir67C

Name the scope in your contract too: which product links, and whether creators’ sales count.

Two agencies. Put the same price ladder in both contracts. Name one of them as owner of the festival calendar, and hold one joint call a month with both in the room. Neither agency should get the other’s channel by default when a contract ends.

Frequently asked questions

Is one agency for Tmall and Douyin cheaper?

It can be. At our calculators’ default settings, two agencies cost 65,000 RMB a month in retainers before any commission. A combined deal saves money only if it cuts that figure and applies a Douyin-level commission to Douyin sales. If the agency charges its Tmall rate across both stores, 2 million RMB of Douyin sales costs 100,000 RMB more.

Can a Tmall Partner become an approved Douyin agency?

Yes, by Douyin’s invitation. A Tmall five-star operator rating counts as supporting proof. The agency still needs more than 12 people on a Douyin team and a 100,000 RMB deposit. After admission comes a quarterly sales bar, which a revision due October 15, 2026, sets at 2 million RMB for agencies serving mainly cross-border stores.

Does Douyin require my Tmall price to match?

No platform can force that now. Under China’s internet platform pricing rule, in force since April 10, 2026, a merchant on several platforms sets its own prices, and a platform may not punish it with fees or lost traffic for pricing higher there than elsewhere. Set the ladder yourself and write it into the contract.

What if the Douyin side underperforms?

That’s why each store needs its own schedule and its own exit. With separate notice periods, you can move Douyin to a specialist DP and keep the Tmall team. Before you sign, write a handover clause for the shop and for the Douyin accounts behind its live room and its ads.

Compass finds the agencies that already sell your category on each platform. Start with our guides to finding a Tmall Partner and a Douyin Partner.

Get a shortlist of Tmall and Douyin Partners for your category